I knew this would likely be sufficient because I can monitor defense levels at my targets easily, as I'm only targeting worlds that are very close to worlds that are already on my node network. Unless the Hivers reacted to my buildup at Po'chak by gating in additional forces, it was going to fall -- and I was timing my fleets' arrivals in the area to the turn before the attack would be launched. The Hivers had a limited window to react, and they missed it.



But I wasn't planning to only attack the Hivers. I was also building up to attack Ankatea, before the Hivers were able to establish a gate over their ally's world. I had defense fleets at Mitrou and Uaxhaktos, but would need more. Fortunately my colonies in the area other than Mitrou were just about done maturing, so I was able to start on fleet construction all along this node chain as well. When I bored the route to Ankatea, however, I did see something that gave me a little bit of pause.

The Morrigi have strikeforce CnC, it seems. And if the Morrigi do, it's a fairly safe bet that the Liir do as well, since the Liir appear to be the most advanced of the AI empires at the moment (and since I saw CA sats at Shononu.) I haven't seen any signs of cruisers from the Hivers or Tarka yet, but surely they are coming, and when they do, that could put a hold on any offensive plans until I can match that achievement. If I want to grab some AI territory, I'd best get to making hay while the sun still shines!

As far as the Ankatea attack itself goes, well... while the Morrigi did have a Strikeforce CnC there when I bored the route, I also noticed they had a very small complement of mostly-not-combat-destroyers along with it. True, they did have almost 30 destroyers there, and I wasn't really sure what all of those designs were. Still, it didn't look like the Morrigi had their fleets really well-organized, and it appeared that they only have basic nuclear missiles and gauss cannons equipped on their ships and sats. Taken as a whole, not particularly scary.
That Strikeforce CnC just meant that I needed to build some extra cannon fodder, which by now I've gone ahead and done. Of course now that I am ready to launch the attack, the Morrigi have just decided to send half their Ankatea defense fleet to Xhicos for some reason. So I guess I'm pretty confident the attack should succeed now! It had better; between the build-up for the Ankatea attack and the buildup for the Altair attack, my fleet maintenance costs have crept up about as high as I am comfortable with at the moment -- not to mention my colonization plans for a number of high-CH worlds on my node network. I could definitely use the income from capturing Ankatea.
So I certainly can't afford to leave my attack fleets idle. The fleets that took Altair were scheduled to attack Akrotiri after that, but the Hivers have given me an interesting problem; they've decided to attack Akrotiri in force as well, and have 50 destroyers enroute. The Tarka already had over 40 destroyers at Akrotiri, but have started reinforcing in response to this threat, and now have 55 destroyers there. It looks like a pretty even fight, but the planet missile batteries should turn the tide in the Tarka's favour.
Now, the fact that the Tarka will probably keep reinforcing Akrotiri as long as the Hivers are enroute means that I will need still more force in order to launch my own attack, even though I really would prefer to cap my military investment at the moment. And I don't want the Tarka to defeat the Hiver attack too easily. Hence, the interesting problem I mentioned earlier. I can either delay my attack until after the Hiver force arrives and schedule my assault for the following turn, in order to fight the hopefully weakened victor, or else I can launch an attack, do as much damage to the planet as possible in one turn, withdraw for repairs and reinforcement, and then attack again the turn after the Hivers attack the Tarka.
So, fun times ahead! Here's an overview of the situation more generally. There's really no point in comparing to the SG team's game any longer; their decision to avoid the core rather than fight for a share of it stunted their game and turned it in a completely different direction. The curious can still go back and pick up their T100 save to make a comparison, if desired.
For those curious instead about my own efforts, here is the save file.
